All Posts by Richard Devine

Anyone who saw Phil Nickinson's Google+ photo of the "gorgeous" red custom battery cover for the Galaxy Nexus may have felt some dismay. It was definitely different, somewhat unique but not altogether convincing as a personalisation of your prized phone. Now though, it gets much cooler than that. Laser etched battery covers, and best of all, they'll be official OEM battery covers.
A startup...

So by now everyone knows that Sony is buying out Sony Ericsson yes? Just in case anyone had forgotten, the company have started sending out letters to their customers reminding them and trying to give them a taste of what lies ahead.
The most interesting part of the letter from Steve Walker, Chief Marketing Officer -- which otherwise offers very little in the way of new information -- concerns...

Frankly, there are few more annoyances when taking photographs than unwanted people getting in the way of that perfect shot. (Unless that shot is of scantilly clad people on a beach in Bora Bora. But we digress.)
A first-of-its-kind application set to be shown off at Mobile World Congress called Remove, from Scalado, can quite amazingly remove said people from your shots.
The technology behind...

Those that read up on my most-used apps of 2011 will know that I am a big fan of Alphascope, the private alpha version of the BlackBerry favourite Socialscope. The application still isn't finished -- on either platform -- but the Android version just got a pretty big update in the Android Market that has made a notable difference.
The addition that might make a difference in getting people...

What do we have here then. Looks like it isn't just our iOS loving friends that get to have all the retro gaming fun. Following on from the colossal success of the iCade iPad cabinet, ThinkGeek have pulled the wraps off the latest concoction -- the iCade 8-Bitty. Only this time, the Android crowd gets to play as well.
The retro-styled controller can be paired via Bluetooth to any Android...

So how are you guys celebrating Valentines Day? Taking that special someone out for a romantic candlelit dinner? Perhaps a bunch of roses, chocolates, Champagne? Or, will you be downloading games from the Android Market? Gameloft would like to think it would be the latter of those choices, and in celebration will be reducing the price of its Android catalogue to $0.99/£0.99.
Seriously though,...

It's been a while since we saw any mention of Quadrant benchmark scores in phone reviews. We hoped that it was for the obvious reason, but in a world where the Galaxy Nexus is king we couldn't run a Quadrant score even if we wanted to -- it didn't work properly with Ice Cream Sandwich. Version 2.0 lands today with support for ICS and multicore CPU's. Oh, and it now supports Polish as well.
What...

It seems like a never ending wait for Sky TV's Android offering of their Sky Go service. Further information has appeared which says the application will not work with Ice Cream Sandwich or with rooted devices.
A post in the Sky TV official forums has further clarified details surrounding the highly anticipated application. We already know that at launch it will be supported by only a handful...

Take a look at our hands on with the GSM Galaxy Nexus extended battery
There is still a distinct lack of official accessories for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. While we're still eagerly awaiting the arrival of such tasty treats as the vehicle and HDMI docks, there is at least one which has made it over to UK shores.
Available now from MobiCity, the 2000mAh extended battery and replacement battery...

It was just a few days ago that we first caught a glimpse of the Nokia N9 running Ice Cream Sandwich. Now that glimpse has progressed into the first video footage from developer Alexey Roslyakov and it's looking pretty impressive so far.
As expected progress is slow, but steady. Key areas not functioning at the moment are network connectivity and the battery indicator. At the moment the phone...

We got the rumour earlier in the week about Google's next plans in the home entertainment space. But a posting on the official Google TV Facebook page has promised "big announcements" coming for the platform on Monday.
At this point there really is nothing at all to go on, but one thing seems sure: Google is definitely keeping up their end in continuing to push the platform forwards....

Mojang's Minecraft Pocket Edition got itself its first major update which has finally brought with it the long awaited survival mode. Survival mode also gets day and night modes, with night bringing about the appearance of monsters.
Besides survival mode, there's a selection of new blocks to choose from most notably doors and and fences. We also get the addition of flying into the creative mode...

The announcement a couple of weeks back that T-Mobile UK would begin to offer truly unlimited data on their "Full Monty" plan was big news. Since then though there have been murmourings from across the UK that the data speeds were heavily capped down to 1Mb/S.
T-Mobile have responded to this with a press release that states there is no such cap on this plan or on any of their prepaid or contract...

We only got the Motorola Droid 4 officially a day ago, but today we see the release of a root exploit for the device, courtesy of security researcher Dan Rosenberg.
That's good news for you guys out there that have thought about picking up a Droid 4 and have to have root access. And as our image here shows, all works, and works well.
The method is Windows-only for now, but it's simple enough....

LinkedIn, the business professionals choice in social networking, is set to introduce advertising into their mobile applications according to their Chief Executive.
On an earnings call this week, Jeff Weiner said that the company is ready to "start to introduce advertising in our mobile solutions." No timeframe was offered for this, but he went on to talk extensively about the mobile...

The global rollout of the latest in the LG Prada family continues, with the news that Vodafone Australia will be offering the device from April.
The release of the Gingerbread powered device will be exclusive to Vodafone, and is being launched for use on its 850MHz network. RRP is said to be AUS$799, but the carrier has indicated that exact pricing and availability will be announced in "coming...

According to documents unearthed by Bloomberg, Google just might be building a dedicated retail outlet in Dublin, Ireland at their European headquarters.
A planning application submitted to the local authorities there states that the "Google Store" would be open to the public and include 123 square meters of space. At present Google has tried out the retail experience in a smaller setting, by...

That other VoIP company, Vonage, have launched their new mobile offering with Skype firmly in their crosshairs. The app listing in the Android Market even goes as far as name-dropping the Microsoft owned competitor, while advertising their own service including free worldwide texts and calls.
Vonage Mobile promises high definition audio calls over WiFi, 3G and 4G worldwide, and cheap-rate...

There are increasingly more and more stories that cross the boundaries between Android and BlackBerry of late. It is no secret of course that the forthcoming update to the BlackBerry Playbook to OS 2.0 will bring with it the Android Runtime feature. Allowing Android developers to repackage their applications for distribution in the BlackBerry App World, is just one of many different new...

Update: As doubleTwist's Monique Farantzos points out, streaming podcasts is now free, but you still have to upgrade to the premium version to download, subscribe and manage podcasts.
Original: Seems that the guys over at doubleTwist have been listening to the comments from the community. The application has been updated again about a week after they first brought in podcast streaming, to remove...

Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by the Android Open Source Project
and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License. AndroidCentral is an independent site
that is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.